


Symbolic Love

by Alonelily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Farm Boy Luke Skywalker, Kinda, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Slight Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, The Force, Time Skips, and then more canon divergence, communicating through the force, i mean it takes them a while to actually meet so yeah i guess, matching symbols with your soulmate, the chanel boots (brief appearance)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29277996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alonelily/pseuds/Alonelily
Summary: Star Wars Soulmate Month 2021: Day 8, "Matching symbols with your soulmate"----------“How can the same symbol be showing up in a stain? That’s just not possible, right?” Luke questioned.“I’ve heard of something like this before,” Laze said, suddenly serious. Luke looked dubiously at him.“Really?”“Yeah. In the Core, people believe that every person has one, a special symbol that’ll follow them through their life. They say if two people have the same symbol, it means they’re meant to be together.”“What, like… soulmates or something?” Luke asked.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda & Luke Skywalker, Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, Grogu | Baby Yoda & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 24
Kudos: 253
Collections: Star Wars Soulmate Month 2021





	1. Tatooine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiii!!
> 
> ok wow, this is actually the longest fic i've ever written, and that's pretty cool :)
> 
> Before anything, i just want to give a shoutout to best beta [bigbidumbass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigbidumbass/pseuds/bigbidumbass) who is awesome and has made this so much better than it would have been otherwise! (no, guys, like... _so much_ )
> 
> I also feel like i should mention that i interpreted this prompt kinda freely i think, so it might not be what you'd expect from the prompt (or it's exactly what you expect and i just don't know my own basicness), but yeah, i won't spoil what it is, but i do hope you like it!
> 
> Without further ado, have some space bois!!

“4500 credits is my final offer, kid. Take it or leave it!”

“4500? But that’s the retail price!” Luke exclaimed indignantly.

“Yeah, and it’s as good as new, so retail price is what it’s going for,” insisted the burly salesman.

Luke grumbled, but couldn’t help the longing look he turned to the landspeeder in question. In truth, the salesman was exaggerating its pristine condition, but not by much. The speeder might have seen a few trips in its lifespan, as evidenced by the scratches in the paint here and there and the few minor bumps in the chassi, but the repulsorlift worked perfectly, all three turbines were undamaged and the cockpit sealed shut smoothly with a slick  _ whoosh _ sound. Luke chanced a glance at the salesman, who only raised an unimpressed eyebrow in return. He was just about to begin another doomed attempt at haggling when the standoff was interrupted by Biggs calling out his name.

“Hey Luke! What about this one?”

Luke turned to see the vehicle Biggs was looking at. It was another X-34, this one open-air and in significantly worse condition. He walked over to examine it closer.

“I don’t know, Biggs. Look at the portside turbine, it’s shot!”

“Oh come on, you can fix that up easy. They’re bound to have the parts at the station.”

“Yeah, I guess. But…” He trailed off as he looked from the sun-bleached, banged up speeder to the sleek, vibrant red one he’d been eyeing earlier. He sighed before waving over the salesman again.

“How’s the antigrav on this one?” he asked.

“Just fine,” came the clipped reply. Luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Well, can you fire it up for me? I’d like to see for myself.”

The salesman stared at him, clearly doubting Luke’s intention to actually buy anything, before presumably realising he wasn’t actually in any place to turn away potential customers, and starting up the speeder. It powered up and surged up to hover unsteadily over the ground, slightly lower than the one meter it was supposed to be able to manage. It wasn’t in any condition to ride, but good enough that he could get it towed to the station at least. Biggs was right; Tosche station would have the necessary parts for repairing the turbine, and apart from that, Luke couldn’t see any major problems with it other than its lackluster appearance.

“All right, how much do you want for it?”

“This one is up for 3500 credits.”

“Are you kidding me? This rustbucket isn't worth anywhere near that! I’ll give you 2000 for it,” Luke countered. The salesman gave him a sharp look at the low offer. To his side, Luke could hear Biggs give a small snort of laughter.

“Look, kid,  _ just for you _ ,” began the salesman in a sardonic tone. “I can go down to 3250, but that’s it.”

“With the repairs it needs it’ll end up being just as expensive as the new one!” Luke said. The salesman rolled his eyes faintly at Luke’s exaggeration, but didn’t bother with arguing it.

“3000,” said the salesman, seemingly having decided that 250 credits was worth it to be rid of Luke.

“2500,” Luke countered, squaring his shoulders. Biggs raised his eyebrows at his friend.

“Kid, 3000 is already 500 lower than my asking price, and less than this speeder is worth. I’m not going any lower.”

“But–” Luke began, ready to launch into a counter argument before the salesman raised a hand to interrupt him. The older man heaved a sigh and closed his eyes, looking as if he was fighting off a particularly nasty headache.

“Two. Seven. Fifty,” He bit out before opening his eyes to stare Luke down. “Final offer.” 

Luke pursed his lips and looked between the speeder and the salesman. He contemplated the price for a moment.

“It’s a deal!” He broke out in a grin and stuck out his hand, which the salesman studiously ignored in favour of giving another deep sigh and walking away to process the purchase. Once the man was out of hearing range, Biggs broke out in a hearty laugh and clapped Luke on the shoulder.

“I can’t believe it! If it had been me, I wouldn’t have been able to get it for anything below asking price,” he said.

“I have a way with people,” Luke beamed.

“Uh-huh, sure you do,” said Biggs indulgingly. Luke leaned down to examine his new purchase closer. There were some larger bumps on the body that would need to be straightened out, and the paint job had seen better days. The once bright red, now dull orange paint had been scratched all over and was peeling at the front, but Luke knew he’d have to focus on the engine before he could worry about the appearance of the vehicle. Besides, there wasn’t much point investing in a good paint job on Tatooine anyway. If he repainted it, the harsh desert climate would have it looking just as dull and scruffy as it was now in a matter of days. He reached out to rub off some of the dirt from the center turbine and noticed a weird sort of stain on it.

“What is that?” he asked, mostly to himself. Leaning in closer revealed it to be not a stain or a chip in the paint as he’d originally thought, but a mark of some kind, painted on top of the sun-bleached red.

“What’s what?” asked Biggs, leaning in next to him.

“This mark right here. It’s painted on. Must’ve been the previous owner,” Luke mused as he tried to make out the design. “I can’t tell what it’s supposed to be, though.”

“Hm, could be…” Biggs tilted his head to the side and squinted critically at the turbine, “…An egg?”

“That’s one strange-looking egg!” Luke laughed.

“No, look!” insisted Biggs, leaping to the defense of his egg. “It’s the outline of it, like it’s only shaded in.” Before Luke had the chance to voice his disbelief, the salesman returned with the papers for the speeder.

“That’ll be 2750,” he said, eyeing Luke as if afraid he’d suddenly try to get the price down further.

“Of course,” Luke smiled brightly and handed over the credits.

As soon as the exchange was complete, Luke and Biggs got to work attaching Luke’s new purchase to Biggs’ own speeder to tow it to the station. After repairing the broken turbine and tinkering with the engine some, Luke would eventually end up putting a layer of paint on the exposed areas of the speeder: not the beautiful bright red that the vehicle had initially been, but instead a lighter orange to match the already faded paint job. Without any great concern for the matter, he would also end up repainting the turbines, dubious egg markings soon all but forgotten.

* * *

Except he couldn’t forget about the symbol. It seemed the very universe itself wouldn’t let him. Since he first saw it on the speeder, it was like the kriffing thing was everywhere—on every peculiar crevice on every rock, in every oddly shaped cloud in the sky—or maybe it had always been there and he just hadn’t noticed until he saw it on the speeder. And now that he had noticed, he just couldn’t not notice it anymore. Maybe he was going mad. Maybe he’d spent one season too many on this useless sandy rock and the boredom and hopelessness had finally taken what was left of his sanity.

He reached his breaking point when the symbol appeared as a huge, ugly—and seemingly immovable—stain on the brand new shirt he’d just gotten for himself. It wasn’t often that he treated himself to new clothes, instead mostly having to settle for buying old used ones and having aunt Behru mend them. There were better ways to spend his money, and work at the farm had a tendency to dirty and ruin new clothes anyway. Still, the other week he’d found himself with enough money to spare and he just couldn’t resist the beautiful garment when he’d seen it in the shop in Anchorhead. It was made from a thick, starched fabric, had an asymmetric cut and when he’d bought it, it had been a crisp, bright white (on second hand, that probably hadn’t been the best idea on Tatooine of all places). Now though, it sported a large, stubborn dirt stain on the back: after being worn only once too!

On some level, Luke had known the shirt was done for the minute he took a turn too fast in his speeder, even before his back hit the ground, but he’d still hurried back home to try to wash it out as quickly as possible. He’d seen the stain over his shoulder, and he’d stared intently at it while trying to scrub it off, but it hadn’t been until he glumly accepted that the stain wasn’t going anywhere that he really  _ saw _ it. It was only then that he recognised it as the very symbol he’d been haunted by for weeks now. In a brief fit of panic he thought the symbol must be some kind of message from Tatooine itself: a reminder that he would never be allowed to have nice things, and he would never be able to get off this planet. The notion passed just as quickly as it came though, and Luke quietly shook his head at his own dramatics. Having finally resigned to giving up on the shirt, Luke found something else to wear but grabbed the ruined shirt to take with him before going out.

He arrived at Tosche station later than he had originally planned, due to his unforeseen detour, and found his friends already there. He made his way to them at the counter where they all seemed to be poring over some new part or other. As he approached, Laze was the first to notice him.

“Hey! Where the kriff have you been, Wormie?” The others turned their attention to him as well at that.

“I took a bad tumble off my speeder on the way. I had to go home and change,” Luke said dejectedly.

“What, are you hurt or something?” Biggs asked.

“No, but look at this,” Luke unfolded the shirt he’d brought with him. “It’s completely ruined!” Camie rolled her eyes and went back to studying the engine part. Laze gave him a blank stare.

“You made us wait for you for half an hour just so you could change your shirt?” he deadpanned. Luke sighed.

“That’s not the point anyway, just,” he splayed the shirt out over the counter, earning an irritated glare from Camie, “Look at this stain!”

“Move that!” Camie exclaimed.

“As much as we all care about your wardrobe, hotshot, we have better things to do,” Laze said.

“This isn’t about my wardrobe, just– Ugh! Biggs, would you look at this? Tell me I’m not going crazy.”

“Uh…” Biggs looked blankly at Luke. “What exactly am I meant to be seeing here?”

“The stain,” Luke bit out impatiently. “Doesn’t it look familiar to you?” Camie reached out to move the shirt from the counter. Luke swatted her hand away, earning him an indignant scoff in return.

“Maybe?” Biggs said uncertainly.

“It’s the symbol again, the one that was on my speeder,” he insisted. “I told you it was following me, and now it’s trying to kill me too!”

“A stain on a shirt is gonna kill you?” Laze raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“It was a really nice shirt,” Luke mumbled.

“Oh! I do recognise it, yeah. It’s the egg!” Biggs exclaimed. Laze shot him a look.

“Are you blind? How is that an egg?”

“Well, see it’s just the outline–” Biggs was interrupted by Camie giving a loud sigh. She made a big show of rolling her eyes and crossing her arms before deigning to speak her mind to them.

“That’s obviously a fish hook,” she said, glaring at the rest of them. Biggs’ brows furrowed.

“A fish hook?”

“Yeah, see that narrow line on the left, that’s the part where the fishing line goes, and the thicker line on the right is the actual hook part,” she explained as she pointed to the various parts of the stain.

“Yeah? What do you know about fish hooks?” Laze asked. “You’ve spent your whole life on Tatooine, have you ever even seen one?”

“My family grows a hydroponics garden, you know,” Camie countered.

“There are fish in hydroponics gardens?” Luke asked, distracted from his staring match with the stain. Biggs scoffed.

“No.”

“Whatever,” Camie said with an eyeroll. “What do you think it is then?” She narrowed her eyes at Luke.

“I don’t know,” he began, not having expected the question to be turned on him. “I… Well maybe it could be a flame? Like from a fire.” 

Laze scoffed at him. “There’s no way–”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point anyway!”

“What is the point then, Skywalker?” Laze asked.

“That it’s following me! I swear I’ve seen it everywhere lately.” 

Laze rolled his eyes at him. 

“Seriously, it was on my speeder too, right Biggs?”

“Yeah, I saw it. It definitely looks like the same symbol.” 

At this, Laze went quiet and looked towards the shirt, examining the stain with new interest.

“How can the same symbol be showing up in a stain? That’s just not possible, right?” Luke questioned.

“Maybe you’re going crazy,” Camie told him cheerfully, reaching for the shirt again. Like before, he slapped her hand away, this time making a face at her too.

“I’ve heard of something like this before,” Laze said, suddenly serious. Luke looked dubiously at him.

“Really?”

“Yeah. In the Core, people believe that every person has one, a special symbol that’ll follow them through their life. They say if two people have the same symbol, it means they’re meant to be together.” Here, the others leaned in in interest. Even Camie uncrossed her arms and seemed to listen to what Laze had to say.

“What, like… soulmates or something?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, I guess. They hold these big parties for all the rich people where they all have to draw a picture, but with their eyes closed so their symbol will show up. Then they look through all of them to see if any of them match. All so they can find the person they’re destined to be with.” As Laze described the gatherings, Luke tried his best to imagine what it might be like to attend one. He could only guess that the venue must be something grand, maybe in one of those buildings people say there are on Coruscant, the ones that stretch all the way to the sky. The people would all be beautiful and probably decked out in the most opulent clothes, infinitely finer than the now dirty shirt laid out on the counter in front of him. And one of them, maybe, would draw the very symbol now displayed in that dirt. Someone who was connected to Luke, someone who  _ belonged _ to him, someone who was destined to love him.

“How do you know all this, anyway?” Biggs’ voice snapped Luke out of his fantasy, and for a second he saw on Camie a dazed expression that must surely have matched his own face. Laze leaned in, looking them all in the eye. Luke and Camie looked at him in rapt attention while Biggs only raised an eyebrow.

“There’s a fortune teller in Mos Eisley. She used to work at these parties, lead the ceremonies and stuff.”

“And you’ve talked to her?” Biggs questioned.

“Sure have,” Laze said, tilting his chin up at Biggs.

“You’ve gone to Mos Eisley?” Luke asked.

“ _ You all _ might find Anchorhead to be exciting enough, but some of us need to set our sights a little higher, you know?” Laze taunted.

“Yeah, well to some people Mos Eisley would be lowering their sights, not raising them,” Camie countered. “People like fortune tellers from the Core, for example. What’s she doing there?” 

Laze bristled at her remark, but soon regained his equilibrium. “Isn’t it obvious? She’s hiding out from the empire, of course.”

“Why?” Luke questioned. “What did she do?”

“Well, I don’t know. I didn’t ask for her life story. The point is she’s there, and she’s reading people’s fortunes for a fee. She might be able to tell you something about that symbol.”

“Like who his soulmate is?” Camie asked urgently, “Or how to find them?” 

Laze shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“Well, then he should see her, right? We should all go and see her,” said Camie.

“Wait, hold on, Mos Eisley isn’t a good place to be hanging around. It’s dangerous. And this lady is probably a scam anyway,” said Biggs.

“She’s no scam, all right. She’s the real deal,” defended Laze. “What do you say, Wormie? I can take you to her.” Luke considered this. Biggs was right in that Mos Eisley was dangerous, and he’d never heard of fortune tellers that could tell you who you were destined to fall in love with either, but… 

He couldn’t know for sure that it wasn’t real either. And if there was even the slightest chance that what Laze was saying was true, and not just some tall tale, then there was someone out there who was haunted by the same symbol that plagued Luke. And that person was his soulmate, his other half, someone who would love him unconditionally and want to be with him forever. Could he really risk never finding that person, just because Mos Eisley was dangerous or because Laze might be lying?

“I don’t think there’s any harm in checking it out,” he said. “Mos Eisley might not be Anchorhead, but we can handle ourselves.”

“All right, if you think so, Wormie,” Laze said condescendingly. “We can go tomorrow. Oh and it’s not a flame by the way.”

“What?” said Luke.

“The symbol. It’s not a flame, or a fish hook. And it definitely isn’t an  _ egg _ ,” he shot a glance at Biggs who frowned in return.

“What do you think it is, then?” Asked Camie.

“Look at the right part, at the patterns in the dirt. It’s not just a solid line,” Laze pointed at the shirt.

“Okay,” said Luke. “Your point being?” 

Laze looked up from the shirt and fixed him with a look. “It’s a skull,” he said. “An animal’s skull, Skywalker.” 

Luke swallowed. He studied the symbol again as if with new eyes. Laze was right, the patterns of the dirt seemed to be making out the curves and crevices of a skull, with the sleek curved line on the left making… A horn maybe? It could be a nerf, but the horn was too far forward on the skull for that. Or maybe a reek, if not for the fact that it was missing the two cheek horns. So then…

“A mudhorn,” Luke said.

* * *

The next day saw Laze confidently leading Luke and Camie to the reputed fortune teller. They’d all been able to skive off work for the day and headed off towards Mos Eisley before noon. Biggs, who was still apprehensive about the whole idea to say the least, had elected not to come with them. As they parked the speeder they’d arrived in, Luke took in the scenery of the town around them. It was probably nothing in comparison to some of the places that existed out there in the galaxy, but with only Anchorhead for a reference point, Luke was easily impressed with the size, the amount of people and the sheer vibrancy of the spaceport.

“C’mon, Wormie, we got places to be,” Laze said impatiently. To his side, Camie laughed at the jibe, her nonchalance betrayed only slightly by the rapid tapping of her foot and the poorly concealed eagerness glistening in her eyes.

Laze quickly led them off the main street, through a connecting street to a smallish alley behind the large buildings. The binary suns shone harshly, still low in the sky, neither having reached their zenith yet. The time of day didn’t seem to matter to Mos Eisley though; the narrow alley they were walking in was cluttered with shady-looking people not having bothered to wait for the cover of darkness before meeting each other to exchange money or other, less savoury items. It was entirely foreign to Luke and he struggled between trying to take everything in, and avoiding any and all eye contact with the individuals in the alley. He landed somewhere in the middle, settling for sneaking surreptitious glances when he thought he wouldn’t be noticed.

His concentration was broken, however, when someone barreled into him from behind. He barely managed to regain his balance in time to turn and face the other person. The young man had a sickly complexion, only highlighted by the dark circles under his eyes and the sheen of sweat on his face. His clothes were dark, despite the oppressive heat of the twin suns.

“Watch where you’re going!” the man hissed at Luke, before raising the hood of his cloak, which had presumably been knocked off in their collision, and shoving his way past him to hurry down the alley.

“What a jerk,” Luke remarked. He was again nearly knocked off his feet, this time because of Laze roughly pulling him, along with Camie, to the side of the alley.

“Hey, listen up you two,” he said. “This isn’t Anchorhead, okay? Mos Eisley is home to some of the lowest scum in the whole galaxy.” Here, he glanced over at where the man who’d collided with Luke was now trying to shove his way past the other people in the alley. “You’ve gotta be careful.”

“Really,” Luke said. He couldn’t help rolling his eyes at Laze. “That guy was a total loser but I think we’ll survive him.” The tail end of Luke’s sentence was drowned out by a booming voice coming from behind them.

“ELIO!” They all turned to see a tall, burly man enter the alley, a blaster visibly strapped to his hip. He scanned the passage with a scowl before seemingly finding what he was looking for. To the group’s other side, the cloaked young man turned to face the other, a fake smile on his sickly face. Luke and his friends stood in their nook, watching as the burly man approached the cloaked figure.

“Running won’t help you, Elio. You should know better. But then you should know better than to make an enemy of Jabba, too,” he spoke.

“Come on now,” the young man said smarmily. “You don’t really like working for that big slug, do you? I’m sure you and I can work something–” He was interrupted by a blaster hit from the larger man and abruptly crumpled in on himself on the ground. The other man approached the lifeless form in the alley. Luke regained his senses all at once and grabbed Laze and Camie by the arms, tugging them out of the alley and into a side street. Once he deemed they’d made it a safe distance away he stopped and let go of them.

“What the kriff just happened?” Camie said in an unsteady voice. She started pacing in small turns. “We could have died!”

“It’s okay,” said Luke lamely. “We’re safe.”

“We just saw a man get killed!” she exclaimed. At this, Laze seemed to shake out of his stupor somewhat.

“What? No, no he wasn’t dead, was he? I mean it was just one blaster hit. He could have survived that, right?” Laze was uncharacteristically pale and was nodding somewhat frantically to emphasise his own words. Luke felt his brow furrow but nodded once and forced a tight smile.

“Yeah, sure he could have.”

“Nobody survives a blaster hit to the chest, you idiot!” Camie yelled, causing Laze’s hands to reach up and tangle in his hair.

“I’ve never–” Laze began, “I don’t know what…”

“Hey,” Luke said, placing a hand on his arm. “We don’t know what happened to that guy. You’re right, he could have survived that, we really don’t know.” Laze nodded along. Luke turned his head and looked Camie in the eye. “The important thing is we’re all okay, right? We’re safe and none of us got hurt.”

Camie stopped her pacing and wrapped her arms around herself. 

“Yeah, okay,” she said unsteadily.

“Okay?” said Luke. “We’re fine. Let’s just get back to the speeder and go home.” Laze dropped his hands from his hair and rolled his shoulders.

“No way, we’ve gotta go to the fortune teller.”

“Laze,” Luke said. “We’re all shaken up. I think we should just go back home.”

“Yeah, you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Skywalker? No, I said I’d take you there so I’ll take you there,” Laze ranted before taking off further into the town, leaving Luke and Camie no choice but to follow.

They walked for a few more blocks, making quick work of the distance with the pace Laze was setting, before he suddenly stopped.

“All right. It’s right here, around the corner, the green door,” he said, still quieter than usual for him, but the colour seemed to have returned to his face at least.

“Okay,” Luke said and quickly drew a deep breath. He’d been serious about going home before, but now that he was there, he felt some of his erstwhile enthusiasm returning at the thought of seeing the fortune teller. He turned the corner, Laze and Camie following him now. Upon seeing the green door, he felt his heart rate pick up, but… something didn’t seem quite right about the house. The area around it was nearly empty of people, despite this street being significantly bigger than the cramped alley they’d passed through earlier. There was only one person near the house, a middle aged woman tinkering with a speeder bike across the street. She only gave them a passing glance as they approached, before turning her attention back to her work.

That wasn’t all though. As Luke walked closed to the house he noticed one more worrying detail; the green door was ajar. He shared a look over his shoulder with Laze and Camie. Camie looked concerned but Laze only set his jaw and stared back at Luke in determination, or maybe a challenge, so he carefully opened the door wider and peeked inside. What he saw inside the house only confirmed the suspicious feeling he’d had outside. It was dark inside, and things were strewn all over the floor, pieces of furniture knocked over even.

“Hey, Laze, are you sure this is the place?” he asked.

“Of course I’m sure,” Laze responded, wandering over to the woman across the street. Luke stooped down to look through the things on the floor, but could hear Laze asking the woman about the house. Luke stepped further into the house and walked around the flipped table in what seemed to have been the sitting area. Around it were a mass of blank paper cards, some pens scattered among them as well.

“It was a bounty hunter.” At the words, Luke looked over his shoulder to see Laze back in the doorway.

“What?”

“The fortune teller, a bounty hunter came and took her,” Laze explained. “The old woman saw it all.”

Luke turned back to the cards on the floor. Among the blank ones was another, a single card that stood out among the sea of white. He picked it up.

“You said she would have clients draw a picture?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, with their eyes closed, or while meditating or something,” said Laze.

“Is that one drawn on?” asked Camie, peeking in through the doorway beside Laze. “Then it must’ve been from the last customer she ever saw.”

“Come on,” Laze said. “I took you. It isn’t my fault she isn’t here. Let’s go back already.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Luke said. As Laze and Camie started heading back, he looked down one last time at the card in his hand. The lines of it were a bit shaky, not from the hand of an artist, but clear nonetheless, strong. There was no mistaking the symbol. Drawn on the card, clear as day was the stylised skull of a mudhorn.


	2. The Rebel Fleet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, yay! So we've done bit of a time jump here from chapter 1, just thought I should warn you! So this is taking place during the movies, more specifically right between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
> 
> But yeah, I hope you like it!

Luke laid in a sterile medical room of the Rebel fleet. As the medical droid worked on attaching the new prosthetic to his arm, his thoughts dwelled on the recent revelations he’d been told. His entire life, he’d wished he could have met his parents, wished they never died. But now, after this encounter with his father, he wished for the first time for the lie his aunt and uncle had told him to be true. It would have been so much easier to go on believing that his father had lived and died as a great Jedi Knight, or even just a navigator on a Spice freighter as he’d previously been told. But no, Anakin Skywalker hadn’t died a hero or a petty criminal, but had fallen to the dark side of the Force and become something far worse. Darth Vader was a murderer, a villain, a monster. What did it say about Luke, to have been fathered by such a person?

The droid poked and prodded at the inner parts of the prosthetic, sending jolts of electricity which Luke’s brain interpreted as pinpricks of pain in a hand that was no longer there. It occurred to Luke that it wasn’t just his hand that he’d lost during the fight, but also the lightsaber he’d been holding. His father’s lightsaber… It was ironic really, that the very fight which had cost him the lightsaber was also the reason he couldn’t quite bring himself to miss it. Vader wielded a different saber now, a blood red one, the heart of which almost seemed to cry out in pain through the Force. But Luke didn’t know at what point he’d lost his old one, or how. Had Ben taken it, or had Vader gotten rid of it of his own volition? And had he lost it the moment he turned to the dark side, or had he wielded it even after? If so, there was no way of knowing how many atrocities that seemingly innocent sky-blue saber might have committed once. Maybe Luke was sad to have lost it after all, but even if he’d still had it, he doubted he could have ever wielded it again.

Luke was pulled out of his thoughts as he noticed the medical droid letting go of his hand. Allowing his eyes to follow to where the droid had been working only minutes ago showed him that the prosthetic was now attached to his arm, and the inner workings were covered by a layer of synthskin. He flexed the hand experimentally and found the sensation to be startlingly similar to that of his real hand, though in a sense the similarity made it feel all the more disturbing. Like it could almost trick him into thinking it was his own limb, but then it would respond just a second too slow or clench just a bit too tight and he’d remember that it wasn’t. He swallowed and forced himself to nod to the medical droid.

“Thank you,” he said.

“The synthskin is designed to replicate human skin, but there will still be a seam where it has been connected,” informed the droid.

“Like a scar?” asked Luke, some feeling brewing in his chest that might have been relief. He didn’t like the idea of the battle being erased or covered up along with the wound. A scar or some other mark to show that this hand wasn’t really his would serve as a welcome reminder that he hadn’t just imagined the whole thing.

“Not really,” deadpanned the droid in its usual monotonous voice. “It won’t fade over time, or heal.”

Luke nodded. Even better. The droid walked away and left him alone with his thoughts once more. He took the opportunity to study the hand and see what that ‘seam’ might look like. He looked down at his new hand and felt his eyes sting as a lump formed in his throat. 

Regardless of what the droid had said, the so-called ‘seam’ did in fact look a great deal like a normal scar. It started in the palm of the hand, around the base of the thumb, and extended, thick and twisted along the side of that digit. At the bottom of his palm it turned sharply and lifted in the other direction, a thinner, more graceful curve here, running perfectly parallel to his life line. To someone else, the peculiar shape of the scar might not mean a thing, the knotted-together synthskin too crude to really communicate anything beyond a now healed injury. But Luke knew these curves, had studied them, considered them endlessly once upon a time. He had no trouble recognising the blemish as the mudhorn symbol that had for a time dominated his thoughts.

With time, the symbol had started appearing less frequently, although it never disappeared completely, and Luke learned to simply accept the fact that things bearing the mudhorn symbol tended to turn out to be things that belonged to him. For a time, he thought about it a lot: enough even, to apply to the Academy for a chance to get off Tatooine and search the galaxy for that symbol. Then, he had to think about it less when uncle Owen needed him to stay on for another season, and by the time he finally did get off Tatooine he only had time to spare it the most fleeting of considerations before events would unfold in such a way that he no longer thought of it at all.

Seeing the symbol again felt much like the artificial hand: strange, yet strangely familiar. It was like how he imagined it must feel to be reunited with a long-lost lover, someone who had once been very dear but from whom one’s own life had for a time diverged, only to cross paths much later, when far too much had changed. But then the symbol hadn’t changed at all. It looked exactly the same as the first time he’d seen it. It was Luke who had changed since whenever he’d last acknowledged it. No, the lines themselves were utterly familiar. How could he not have thought of them even a single time in the last few years when once he’d known them like… like the palm of his hand.

He huffed out a wet and incredulous laugh. If the Force was trying to tell him something, it had all the subtlety of a stampeding bantha herd. Maybe on some level, he’d thought that the symbol belonged to his past. After all, that symbol had first appeared to him back on Tatooine, when he was nothing but a naïve farmhand. Now he was the furthest thing from that, and it felt strange to think that the same symbol that had so defined Luke the moisture farmer could also belong to Luke Skywalker the Jedi. But clearly the Force, or the universe, or whatever was responsible for the symbol, disagreed with that assessment. Sewing the mark into the Rebel-issued prosthetic he’d gotten to replace the hand that his Sith lord father had cut off with a laser sword was a pretty clear indication that the symbol belonged to him now as much as it ever had. But what exactly that meant, he had no idea.

* * *

Luke could swear Leia hadn’t so much as sat down once since they returned to the fleet. Every time he saw her she was striding purposefully somewhere, or brusquely ordering about whatever poor Rebels had the misfortune of being in the room when she walked in. Likewise, every time he saw her, she resolutely shut down any attempt on his part to get involved and help out. Even just being seen up and walking in the hallways would earn him a stern look and an order to return to his room to rest. Truthfully, he felt he’d mostly recovered over the last few weeks, and had even become nearly accustomed to his new hand. But Leia’s purposeful striding seemed especially tense lately and he worried slightly that if he stopped her to argue the matter, he might end up actually needing the bedrest.

He’d told her about what happened on Bespin, but had briefly been hesitant, wanting to spare her the additional stress on top of everything she was already dealing with. In the end, he hadn’t been able to keep it from her. It was a combination of feeling terrible about lying to her and needing desperately to talk to her about it. She’d listened patiently and had been so supportive that he kind of wished she would just go back to bossing him around already. All the same, talking to her about it had felt like having a pound of bricks lifted off his chest.

They hadn’t really talked since then, due to some combination of her restlessness and his introspectiveness (and fear of her stern looks). But more and more, he found himself as if transported back several years, once again obsessed with the same thoughts and questions that had plagued him ever since that fateful trip to Mos Eisley with Camie and Laze. And in between considering the pain and stress Leia was carrying, and how best to help her ease it without being throttled, he also regularly returned to the gnawing awareness that she was, in fact, a princess. Laze had made it sound like the symbols, or at least any customs surrounding them, were a high society thing. He had no doubt in his mind that if there was something to know about them, Leia would know it. Beyond his own curiosity, there was also the fact that this subject might prove significantly less depressing than any of the others he currently had at hand to try to start a conversation with her.

And so it was that he found himself faking a malfunction in his prosthetic hand to entrap Leia into a conversation. He expected that, lighthearted topic or not, it would be nearly impossible to pin her down for any length of time unless she thought she was being of use or fixing something. Her pointing out the fact that he himself was the more mechanically skilled of the two was expertly countered by the reminder that he was right-handed and therefore couldn’t quite poke around in the prosthetic himself. Dodging her suggestion that he head back to the medbay for the repair was trickier, but he managed it through a combination of a very troubled furrowing of his brows and a quiet confession that he wasn’t comfortable with displaying his hand to a stranger (even a droid), as it still reminded him a little too much of… that day. At this, she gave him a pained smile and said only that she was honoured to be trusted with it. Luke pushed aside the slight pride and slightly less slight shame at his newfound skill in emotional manipulation and, eager to get started, detached his hand and tossed it to her.

“Great, thanks! I’ll walk you through it as you go,” he smiled sunnily. She quirked an impeccable eyebrow, but nevertheless sat down at his desk and got to work peeling back the synthskin to expose the inside of the hand.

He waited until she had started loosening some of the screws, banking on the fact that she wouldn’t storm out on him after disassembling his hand, before he broached the topic that was on his mind. “So,” he began, drawing up his legs under him to sit cross legged on the bed. “Oh by the way, you’re gonna want to use the quarkdriver there. Anyway–”

“Wait, quarkdriver? Is that this one?” She asked, holding up a holo-probe.

“No, the other one, the one with the red handle,” he answered impatiently. “So anyway, have you ever heard of people seeing symbols that lead them to their soulmate?”

“Uh,” she said, and looked up from where she was struggling with the quarkdriver.

“Because a friend of mine on Tatooine told me that on the Core worlds people believed in something like that,” he hurried to explain. “Also, switch to the tuning stylus.”

She surveyed the tools on the table before hesitantly showing him the correct one. He nodded urgently. “Well, yes,” she said after she’d returned her attention to the prosthetic. “That isn’t a thing on Tatooine?”

“No, not at all!” he said excitedly. “So is it true that people all go to parties and draw things blindfolded to find their soulmates?”

She chuckled. “No, you aren’t blindfolded. Whoever’s leading the ceremony will guide everyone in a meditation that’s supposed to let you access your subconscious. Then, if you manage to achieve the right state of trance, you’ll draw a symbol that supposedly connects you to your other half.”

“That’s amazing,” Luke said and threw himself dramatically onto his back on the bed. “Everyone must be so happy in the Core, if they’re all together with their soulmates.”

“Well, there is the small matter of the Empire that might be a thorn in the side of some people,” she pointed out cynically. “Besides, the ceremonies are rarely successful anyway.”

Luke sat up urgently. “What? Why?”

Leia couldn’t help but laugh at his antics at this point. “Well, what now? What do I do now?”

Luke grumbled. “Control the magnetic polarity with the check prong, then sweep the circuit with the micro-cleaner.”

“This… this one?” she asked hesitantly. Luke shook his head. She held up another one. Nope. She sighed and reached for a third choice. This time, Luke nodded and she got back to work. He kept quiet for a second, waiting for her to continue speaking. She didn’t.

“Ugh, so why don’t the ceremonies work? What’s the problem? If you know what your symbol is, it’s gotta be easy enough to look for someone who has the same one, right?”

“Well, yes,” she answered. “ _ If _ you know it. But for a lot of people the meditation doesn’t work, and even if you think it works there’s a possibility that you weren’t actually in a trance at all, and you just drew something that you wanted to draw. Then even if you do find your symbol, it’s rare to find someone who has the same one. The universe doesn’t seem particularly interested in bringing people together with their intended. I think that’s why the ceremonies are so popular. It’s a one in a million chance, and people will do anything to improve those odds.”

Luke pouted. Laying back on the bed again, he absentmindedly cradled the end of his right arm in his left hand. Back when he’d first found out about the subject on Tatooine, he’d assumed it would be as easy as showing the symbol to one of those seers and then being pointed in the right direction of where his soulmate was. The only obstacle in his path back then had been the lack of any such seer in his vicinity, except of course for that one he’d narrowly missed in Mos Eisley. Stupid bounty hunters, ruining people’s chances at love. He sighed softly. 

Apparently reality was slightly more complicated than what he’d imagined. His left hand fingers traced the bumps and divots of the scar tissue on the end of his arm. Maybe it was for the best anyway. He couldn’t in good conscience drag an innocent person into the dangerous mess his life had turned into. He could sort of, maybe understand what Yoda had been getting at with the whole “no attachments” thing. While he’d never abandon his friends when they needed him, and refused to become so absorbed in being a Jedi that he forgot he was a person too, he could see the folly in attaching himself even further, or to yet more people. His path was a solitary one, one he couldn’t expect anyone, much less the essential stranger that was his soulmate, to follow.

“There,” Leia said as she finished cleaning out the innards of the prosthetic. “I didn’t see any blockage. Should I do something else?”

“No, that’s all right,” said Luke, more somber than before. “Just pop the cover panel back on and replace the synthskin.”

“Okay, how do I close the cover panel? It just came right off when I opened it.” Suddenly she grinned at him. “Are you going to tell me I need to use a hyper-thermal whittling knife or a sonic screwdriver or something?”

“No,” he frowned. “Just use the allen wrench.”

“Oh,” she said and picked up the disappointing tool. “Why the sudden interest in ‘soulmates’ anyway?”

He shrugged. “My friend told me about it a long time ago. It’s such a strange thing to think about now, so much later, but…”

“I know what you mean,” she said softly. “There are so many things I should be thinking of now, and yet my mind insists on providing the strangest memories that aren’t at all relevant anymore.”

He tilted his head so he could study her while lying down. She gently attached the cover panel and began folding the synthskin back in place. A smile twitched on his lips. “Did you ever do them? The ‘ceremonies’?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I did.”

“And? Did you ever draw anything?”

She finished closing up the hand, but studied it for a few seconds after she’d taken her own hands off it. She smiled faintly. “Yes, but only once. After that I wasn’t allowed to participate in the ceremonies anymore. I think my father thought I’d drawn what I did on purpose, in some sort of rebellion.”

She picked up the prosthetic and sat down on the edge of the bed to give it to Luke. He took it and fiddled uselessly with it with his left hand. She patted his arm and smiled indulgently at him.

“What did you draw?” he asked.

Her brow furrowed, and her eyes drifted to the wall opposite the bed, as if her symbol would appear to her there. For a moment he thought he’d struck a nerve, and that maybe she wouldn’t answer. But then she did.

“A thermal detonator,” she said in a quiet voice. They were still for a beat, before she fixed a small smile back onto her face—genuine, although not quite large enough to entirely erase the furrow in her brow. She gave his arm a final pat, and then rose to her feet and left the room, presumably walking very briskly down the hallway to make some poor Rebels cry over the placement of supply crates or the poor documentation of the cleaning schedules.

Once she’d left, Luke reattached the prosthetic to his arm. He experimentally clenched and unclenched it a few times. He huffed out a laugh in disbelief.  _ This is so like Leia, _ he thought to himself. Despite her hesitancy with the tools, and the fact that there hadn’t actually been anything wrong with the hand to begin with, he could swear it was responding faster than before.

* * *

It was finally time to go. They’d been plotting, planning and lying in wait for almost a year now, and the time had come to set their carefully constructed plans into motion. They’d made all the preparations they could at this point and were as ready as they’d ever be. Luke himself had one thing left to do before his part in the scheme would come, but he’d take care of that on the planet’s surface: his own adventure while the others played their own parts.

For now, he settled for buckling himself into one of the passenger seats of the Millenium Falcon. Leia sat on the other side, with C3PO buckled up off to the side. Chewie was in the pilot’s seat, the one beside him conspicuously empty. It didn’t matter. Chewie could get them down to the planet, and by the time of the return trip, the plan was they’d have their other pilot back safe and sound.

Chewie fired up the engines and prepared for takeoff. The others braced themselves. The cockpit was quieter than Luke thought he’d ever heard it, all of them too focused on what lay ahead to bother with the usual bickering. Of course, this may also have had something to do with the never more obvious absence of the person who stood for at least half the bickering most of the time. Even Threepio seemed to have read the room for once.

As soon as they had made the jump to hyperspace, Leia wordlessly got up and went to get ready. She stopped only to exchange a glance with Luke on her way out, but that look alone communicated everything none of them could quite bring themselves to say at that point.  _ We will succeed, _ that look said. Luke returned it with one that answered, unequivocally:  _ yes, we will _ . She nodded, and then the doors whooshed, once to let her through, and then again when she’d gone.

Only a few quiet seconds passed after Leia left the room, before C3PO’s uncharacteristic calm dissipated. “Are we sure this is a good idea? I don’t like the thought of the Princess endangering herself so.”

“Don’t worry, Threepio. She can handle herself,” Luke said.

“Why yes, of course. Nonetheless, Jabba the Hutt has a fearsome reputation and her willingly venturing near his lair will only serve to put her in danger. Even the most skilled individual would find themselves in mortal peril at the hands of such a thug!”

From the pilot’s seat Chewie let out a plaintive roar.

“Threepio!” Luke admonished. “It’s all right, Chewie. We’ll get him back.”

“I suppose we should retain hope, even if the situation seems entirely hopeless at the moment,” C3PO acquiesced. Luke sighed. Chewbacca let out another cry.

“If you say so,” C3PO responded to the Wookie. “But I fail to see how that will help him now.”

“What?” asked Luke, wishing his Shyriiwook was better so that he could more effectively moderate whatever conversation C3PO insisted on having with Chewbacca.

“Chewbacca insists that Captain Solo has gotten out of worse situations before, although personally I believe he must be exaggerating the Captain’s abilities,” answered C3PO. Luke’s eyes widened and he attempted to communicate to C3PO just how convenient it would be for him to abandon this particular topic of conversation. Predictably, the droid did not receive the message. It seemed facial expressions were not one of the over six million forms of communication in which C3PO was fluent.

“Honestly, I—” he began before Luke decided, for the sake of the mental wellbeing of the pilot, and thereby the physical wellbeing of the rest of them, to interfere.

“Threepio. I’m sure Chewie knows what he’s talking about.” He turned to Chewbacca. “You’ve known Han for a long time, right?”

Chewie answered in Shyriiwook, although Luke couldn’t make out anything from the trilling cry. He turned to C3PO. This time, the droid seemed much more susceptible to the subtleties of the human face, or maybe he was just at ease when being recognised for his skills as a protocol droid.

“He says that he has known Captain Solo for over a decade,” C3PO responded diligently.

“That’s quite a while,” Luke said. “Knowing Han, I can imagine he got into more than a few scrapes in that time.”

Again Chewbacca answered, and again Luke looked to C3PO for a translation.

“He says that there has never been a nasty situation which Captain Solo has not been able to turn around,” C3PO said. “Although if you ask me, such plain luck cannot be relied upon to—”

“So,” interrupted Luke. “How did you even end up travelling with him in the first place?”

This time Chewbacca gave a longer answer, and though the cries of Shyriiwook sounded as mournful as ever, he seemed to be in a more positive mood.

“They became acquainted through their mutual poor standing with the Empire, and Captain Solo saved Chewbacca’s life,” C3PO translated. “Later, the Captain even waived Chewbacca’s life debt to him, to allow him the chance to free and be reunited with some of his people.”

“But you’re still travelling with Han,” Luke said, curiosity piqued. “You didn’t choose to go with your people?”

Chewie cried out again. “Family is incredibly important to Wookies,” C3PO translated. “The Wookies believe that they are tied to their loved ones by more than blood, but by something more akin to fate.”

At the mention of the word, Luke unconsciously turned over his right hand, although the leather glove he wore currently covered the mark he knew to be hidden underneath. “Like how people in some systems believe in soulmates?” he asked.

Another burst of Shyriiwook, followed by another translation from C3PO. “It is a similar concept, yes, although the Wookie understand it differently. While humans tend to place the emphasis on romantic love, the Wookie instead believe that the observation of spiritual symbols, and the bonds they foretell, signify one’s… well, the closest translation would be ‘family,’ or perhaps ‘clan.’ The people who belong to oneself, and to whom one belongs in return.”

“And you still left that behind for Han?” Luke asked, dumbstruck both by the beauty of this new understanding of something he’d thought himself familiar with, but also by Chewbacca’s dedication for willingly parting with something so clearly important.

This time, he thought he could almost detect something of a jovial tone to Chewie’s reply, although he wasn’t nearly confident enough in Shyriiwook to say so with any confidence.

“He says, Master Luke, that the family he parted with would be all right without him, seeing as they had each other. Captain Solo, on the other hand, would have been all alone.”

At this, Luke found a smile tugging at his mouth. “Well then, it’s a good thing you went with him. This is one scuffle Han might have trouble getting out of on his own. But with his clan coming to rescue him, he’ll be just fine.”

Chewbacca roared in agreement.

* * *

Once they landed, Leia and Chewie trekked off in the direction of Jabba, while C3PO and R2D2 stayed behind with Luke. He’d already planned the next steps of his own journey ahead of time and knew exactly where to go.

The cave was nearby where they had parked the Falcon and Luke began to make his way to it, R2D2 and C3PO following him adeptly and plaintively, respectively. Once there, he was pleased to find that Ben’s old texts hadn’t been mistaken. Just like they’d claimed, there was an energy here, almost like a song in the force. The droids waited just inside the opening of the cave as he himself ventured further.

As he left the oppressive light of the binary suns in favour of the darkness of the cave, the song became clearer and clearer. As he finally laid eyes upon the crystals that grew there, the melodic humming increased, seeming to come as much from within himself as from the crystals. One particular part of the formation called out to him, and when he reached out to touch it, he found that a part of the crystal broke off, seemingly out of its own volition, into his hand. In his hand, it transformed from its previous clear colour, into a calm yet vibrant green.

He’d prepared the rest ahead of time, and with the parts and tools he’d brought, he made quick work of assembling his new saber. He followed every step of the instructions he’d carefully studied in Ben’s texts, but hesitated before activating the saber once he’d finished. He wasn’t quite done yet. He took a spare bit of metal from what he’d brought for the hilt and began shaping it.

He knew less than ever about the symbol, but still he felt he knew it in a way he hadn’t before. The truth was that whether there was anyone out in the universe who was connected to him through the mark, it still mattered to him. Regardless of whether there was someone at the other end of the connection, it was still a connection to something greater than him. The galaxy, he might have said once; the Force, he was inclined to think now. Only time would tell if the symbol bound him to anything besides itself, to some person, or some destiny. But for the time being, it was a part of him.

Years ago, he’d placed all his hopes and dreams of love on that symbol. From his small corner of the galaxy, he’d imagined grand adventures among the stars together with someone else. Now, he’d changed infinitely from that boy who hadn’t known a thing about neither stars nor adventures, but the symbol still remained all the same.

He put his finishing touches to the saber, before igniting it for the first time. The cave was bathed in green light, which reflected beautifully off the stone walls, the still softly singing crystals, and the metal mudhorn skull recently attached to the hilt of the saber.

He stood. He’d accomplished what he came here for, and it was high time he made his way to the others. Leia and Chewie would already be at Jabba’s by now, and they would need backup. They had work to do.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh... yeah i know this doesn't all work with canon really... my excuse is that by the time i realised i was already too attached to the idea to give it up :/
> 
> Also, my excuse is kinda that this is an au so i can do what i want B)
> 
> (but fr sorry about canon guys, hope you can overlook it)


	3. Coruscant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another little time skip here! So the movies have now taken place and we are pretty much lined up with The Mandalorian show. Hopefully, the specifics of it will make sense from the chapter itself!

Luke’s joints crackled and popped as he finally stood from the ground.

“Well done today,” he said. “You’ve improved a lot since we began.” He stretched his tense muscles, the dull ache strangely welcome as it spoke to duties fulfilled and a day well spent.

“Well,” said Leia jovially. “It must be because I have such a great teacher.”

“And to think, when we started training you couldn’t sit through ten minutes of meditation!” he joked.

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad. Besides, you could hardly blame me for not wanting to waste time sitting around when I have responsibilities to the New Republic.”

Luke smiled, knowing that Leia was fully aware there was more to meditation than just ‘sitting around’, as evidenced by her performance today. Although, she was right of course; since the Rebellion culminated in the defeat of the Empire and the subsequent emergence of the New Republic, Leia’s life had been hectic to say the least. As soon as it had been clear which way the war was going, a myriad of previously neutral or Empire-allied individuals and systems had suddenly declared their allegiance to the Rebellion, and as such, the New Republic was not lacking in suitable candidates for leadership and organisation. But Leia’s strong presence, and that of her father before her, in the Rebellion since its very beginning, led people to turn to her first-hand in search of leadership. She, being not at all averse to bossing people around, had felt implored to answer the call.

Luke gathered up the few training materials he’d brought with him and followed Leia from the immaculately kept gardens into the luxurious Coruscant apartment she shared with Han. They barely had time to settle in the living room before they both felt the angry and confused ripple through the Force signifying little Ben had woken from his afternoon nap. While Leia went to check on the baby, Luke busied himself with putting away the training materials. As he wandered the corridor to his permanent guest bedroom he contemplated the stark differences between his sister’s life and his own.

While Leia was surrounded by people and obligations, being pulled in so many different directions she sometimes struggled to find time for her own family, Luke himself had practically become a hermit in the last few years—at least if the rumours about him were to be believed. People spoke in hushed, yet awed tones about Senator Organa’s brother, the ace pilot, the war hero, the Jedi. That last one was perhaps grounds for the most speculation, the Force seeming to most people like something ancient, mysterious and inexplicable. These sentiments apparently extended also to Luke, for wielding it. It would soon be time, Luke knew, for him to settle and officially establish his new Jedi Order. He would take apprentices to train in the ways of the Force, and the Jedi would once again become a tangible and quantifiable presence in the Galaxy, rather than the legends, stories and few lone vagabonds they were currently comprised of.

That time was soon, but not quite now. All the pieces weren’t in place yet. Luke had spent the past years travelling the Galaxy, searching for records of the Jedi, for knowledge in their ways. Over the course of his journeys he’d learnt more about the Jedi, and about the Force itself, than he’d ever thought possible. He’d studied the ways of the old Order, chosen which parts to revive, and which would be best left to remain in the past. He’d done all he could, but the time still wasn’t right. What was left, he didn’t know, but he trusted the Force to lead him to where he needed to be.

Luke reached his room and went to his set of drawers to put away his things. When he’d arranged them carefully so as not to damage anything, his eyes trailed over the complete contents of the drawer. This was where he kept the bulk of his collection of records and artefacts pertaining to the old Jedi Order. Occasionally, he might take an item with him on his travels if he wanted to study it more or under different circumstances, but for the most part he kept it all safely tucked away here until the day he’d have his own base of operations.

He gently caressed the worn binding of an old tome. He hadn’t needed to go far at all to findthis particular text; he’d found it among Ben’s things after the old man had died. He’d held onto it, believing that Ben would have wanted him to keep it safe, but for some reason hadn’t dared read it until encouraged by Ben himself, after he’d appeared to Luke through the Force.

Luke smiled to himself as he felt the disturbance from earlier settle. Leia had succeeded in comforting Ben, who was now emanating a sleepy contentment instead of the distress from earlier. However, no sooner had the Force quieted before it flared sharply again, stronger this time than Ben’s earlier outburst, yet more controlled. This signature was different from both Leia and Ben, who were currently the only two people in the apartment at all, never mind the only Force-sensitives. Yet Luke could feel whoever it was as if they were standing right beside him.

The call was not panicked despite clearly communicating a sense of danger, as well as of need. It was firm, but light, slicing through the Force as through warm butter: sent by someone who was obviously strong with the Force, but not yet trained. Luke felt, more than heard, a gasp break free from his throat. This was a child, a youngling, reaching out for help.

The child sent out a flurry of images, all of them tripping over each other in a strive to be seen, understood, to try and explain the situation. They flitted by so quickly that Luke could only make out some parts here and there. First there was a man, seemingly in Mandalorian armour. Luke felt a chill of fear. Was the bounty hunter after the child? If the man was already there, Luke might not be able to get to the child fast enough to— then, his train of thought was derailed as the next image came: this time a bright light coming from above, and another man—a doctor?—dressed in an imperial uniform peering down at him, studying him as one would a sample under a microscope. 

This image was tainted by anxiety, transferred from the child through the connection. Then the image shifted again and there was sparsely grass-covered dirt under his small feet. The green of the grass was turned a dark moss-like colour in the soft warm light of a setting sun. A few feet away from him a frog jumped by. He was pulled away again, this time to the snug seat of a ship. In his hands were a packet of delicious, sugary cookies. He felt the echo of the child’s glee over the treat through the memory before the scenery changed one final time.

Now, he was sitting down, and around him a small mountain valley spread out. The wind blew cool and free across his skin. He wasn’t touching the ground but from what he could see it was wet and muddy. The air held a sense of danger, as remembered by the child, although it was accompanied by determination and strength. Though absorbed in the borrowed memory, Luke felt his own body give out a gasp of shock as a large animal came barrelling at the child. The creature was unmistakably a mudhorn. He saw as a small hand stretched out, and with the familiar pull of the Force, the mudhorn was lifted off the ground to hover mid-air.

As the child’s memory gave way to the darkness of exhaustion, so faded the rapid display of images and Luke was left only with a single, clear message: _Come. Help._ Then the connection fizzled out as the child was seemingly overtaken by weariness again.

The rush through the Force departed as quickly as it had come and Luke stumbled when it left him, catching himself on the dresser to regain his balance. He couldn’t calm his racing heart, but he managed to at least steady his breathing before he jumped into action. Grabbing the bare necessities he would need on his trip, he threw them haphazardly into a bag, bristling in irritated impatience when he couldn’t find the last thing he needed in his closet. Then he raced out into the hallway where he nearly ran straight into Leia, who was headed towards his room.

“Luke? What—”

“Leia! Have you seen my boots anywhere?” he asked hurriedly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, concern marring her features.

“I don’t have time— I need to go, Leia. Right now.”

She reached up and bracketed his face with her hands, thumb stroking his cheek calmingly. “Sweetie… You’re crying.”

Tentatively, he reached up with his good hand and noted that his cheeks, and her hands, were indeed wet with tears. He took her wrists and gently pried her hands off his face.

“Did you feel it?” he asked. “In the Force?”

She shook her head, brow furrowing.

“It was a call,” he elaborated. “A call for help. From a youngling.” He laughed wetly. “I need to find them, Leia.”

Her brow smoothed in understanding. “Of course. Can you locate them? Do you need help?”

“I know where to go,” he said, sure of himself.

“What about getting there? Han and Chewie will be back in an hour or so. We can take the Falcon.”

“No, there isn’t time. I’ll take my X-wing. I’ve gotta go now.”

She held his gaze for a moment before she sighed. “By the bench in the garden,” she said. “That’s where you left your boots.”

He didn’t waste a second before running off for his boots.

“But you be careful!” she shouted after him.

“I’m always careful!” he shouted back, waving her off with his prosthetic hand over his shoulder.

He snatched up his boots in the garden and put them on in the elevator ride to the garage, where he promptly hopped into the X-wing. Behind him, R2D2 beeped a greeting.

“Hey there, buddy. I can’t believe I nearly forgot you. Did Leia send you?”

R2D2 responded which as much sass as his circuits could conjure.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you’ll do a good job of keeping me outta trouble,” he said as he powered up the engine and made to take off.

* * *

Luke remembered with perfect clarity where the call had come from. He couldn’t name the planet nor describe the location but knew the exact direction and distance like he knew his own name. Flying towards the place was as easy as breathing, and the monotonous task left his mind plenty of time to consider what he knew of the situation.

The child was in danger. That much was clear. By far the most terrifying memory had been that of the doctor studying the child. It had only been a flash but had been linked to other sensory memories: pain, fear and hopelessness. It seemed this was what the child was ultimately afraid of, but it hadn’t been the first image conveyed. No, that had been the image of a Mandalorian bounty hunter. So perhaps that was what was happening now, or had been happening at the time of the call, at least. The child remembered the doctor but was not currently there, so maybe they’d gotten away, only for the doctor or whoever he worked for to send a bounty hunter to retrieve the child. If so, Luke could only hope that he would have time to intervene before the bounty hunter could return the child to wherever that doctor was. Either way, Luke would track the child of course, but he’d rather they didn’t have to suffer through that nightmare again.

Luke exhaled sharply and impatiently fiddled with the ship’s controls. The memory that truly gave him pause, and also the one he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on too long, was the very last one. The child had demonstrated an impressive aptitude and intuition in the Force when lifting a whole mudhorn off the ground. But it wasn’t only the sheer size of the accomplishment which stood out to Luke. 

The fact that it had been a mudhorn in particular seemed too strange to be a coincidence. The symbol of a mudhorn’s skull had haunted Luke since his youth, since before he joined the Rebellion, and since before he ever knew anything about the Force. Laze had told him it was a sign of his destiny. Leia had told him the symbol was only the object of superstitious beliefs which were rarely rewarded, and Chewie had told him it signified family.

The mudhorn, combined with the fact that Leia hadn’t so much as sensed the call which had been so crystal clear to Luke, led him to believe that it must somehow be his destiny to find and train this child. He breathed out a shaky laugh. For so long he’d wondered about the person his symbol would one day lead him to. For a time now, he hadn’t been sure it would ever lead him anywhere, and had accepted it as yet another of the mysteries of the Force that he simply couldn’t solve. But when his mind had strayed to imagining that someone, he’d at first dreamed up a person who would be interesting and adventurous, who would take him to travel the Galaxy, and who would make his life more exciting than it was. 

Then, after he’d joined the Rebellion, he’d thought of some innocent person living a peaceful life in their own corner of existence, and he’d mourned at the thought of dragging them into danger. But never had he considered that the symbol might guide him to someone who was lost and helpless: someone who needed him. Whimsically, he wondered if old Ben had ever been haunted by sand reminiscent of that of Tatooine, or perhaps by the image of a moisture farm vaporator. It didn’t matter; he would find this child, and guide and protect them, just as Ben had guided and protected him after he’d lost his home and seemingly his place in the universe.

As he approached what he knew to be the place of origin of the call, he reached out in the Force, trying to reach the child again. Since he already knew the signature he was looking for, he was able to find the child, but they had moved since they spoke to him. They were no longer on the surface of the planet Luke was headed towards, but somewhere else, further away. Luke adjusted his course to where he felt the child’s signal to be coming from. He prodded lightly at the presence, trying to re-establish the connection to find out if the child was all right.

The answer was somewhat muddled due to the distance, or perhaps the confusion of the situation itself, but it was there at least. The child sent images of stormtroopers, and of a man in imperial armour, carrying a… a lightsaber? There was anger here, both from and towards this man, but then the man disappeared from view and the Mandalorian from before returned. Strangely, the child seemed to feel relief here.

Luke frowned to himself and sent out a question through the Force. _Is this man dangerous?_ The answer was immediate and forceful. Luke’s mind was washed over by a flood of memories starring the Mandalorian, all displayed over an undercurrent of safety, security and something that felt undeniably like love. First, a T-shaped visor peeking down as his cradle opened, accompanied soon by a gloved hand reaching out to touch a much smaller one. Then, he was back in the seat of the ship from before. 

In front of him were an array of control panels, and a window, revealing this to be the cockpit of the small ship. In the pilot’s seat was the Mandalorian. The child’s memory flared with curiosity and joy as the Mandalorian unscrewed and handed him a shiny sphere from one of the levers on the controls in front of him. There were memories of warm, solid ground beneath his feet, as well as bright, cold snow all around. There was food, and a warm, soft bed, and memories of being carried by the Mandalorian, one tiny hand held gently between two larger leather-clad fingers.

Finally, there was the memory of the mudhorn from before, but this time Luke could see a figure of mud-covered beskar fighting the creature. The man was flung violently as the mudhorn angrily thrashed its head. The chestplate of his armour had split and now stuck out at a strange angle from his body. The mudhorn prepared to rush at the Mandalorian again, and Luke felt the child’s fear spike and then give way to determination and a near meditative sense of serenity. The child reached for the Force with as much ease as Luke might reach for his lightsaber, and soon the mudhorn was kicking its legs in vain as it floated in the air. The memory faded out again as the child passed out in exhaustion from the feat they had performed.

_All right,_ Luke thought in astonishment, _not dangerous, then._

The child responded with agreement, as well as a tint of pride, presumably at having explained the matter to Luke. They seemed to remember themselves quickly though, and sent out another jolt of _dangerpleasecomehelp_. Luke frowned, but returned the Force equivalent of a nod. Of course he’d come. Turning around had never been an option, even if the child turned out to be fine. The bond that the child had with the Mandalorian seemed almost familial, like that of a parent and child, and Luke had decided that the old Order’s practice of separating children from their parents wasn’t the path he wished to take going forward. 

Still, the child was Force sensitive and would need training. He’d have to figure out a way to make it work with the Mandalorian. If the man was opposed to both being parted from his child and remaining stationary wherever Luke thought to set up his academy, Luke would just have to follow the bounty hunter across the Galaxy to train his kid.

Either way, the child’s education plan would have to wait until they were all safe, thought Luke as he steered his X-wing toward the large Imperial cruiser straight ahead.

“Incoming craft, identify yourself,” the voice of a woman rang out as he was hailed by the cruiser. He didn’t respond, but instead sent out a message to the child.

_I’m here._

* * *

Luke pulled up his hood and strode from the landing bay to the bridge, where he could feel the only life signs on the ship through the Force. Behind him, R2D2 beeped indignantly at being left to haul himself out of the X-wing rather than be politely lifted out by Luke. He scoffed lightly.

“Sorry, Artoo. No time!”

As he turned a corner in the hallway, he was faced with several dark troopers attacking him. Ah, so that’s what the threat was. Now, the relatively low number of lifeforms aboard the cruiser made sense. He swiftly blocked the blaster hits from the troopers and cut them down with his saber. The hardened black plasteel and the heavily shielded circuits were made to be near indestructible, but like most other materials, they put up little resistance for a lightsaber.

Luke continued making his way to the bridge, destroying down four more troopers on a narrow walkway, and three more in the cargo bay. From the bridge, he sensed one of the people grow increasingly panicked and fearful the closer he got. There was a rapid conflict as all the others reacted to whatever that one had done. Luke kept the majority of his attention on the dark troopers around him, but spared a small probe through the Force to check on the child. They were alive and well, and reached out to him in return, something between happiness and worry bleeding through in response to his arrival.

He stepped into the elevator that he knew would take him to just outside the bridge. As the elevator ascended at what felt like an inordinately slow pace, Luke focused on the child. They were still concerned, and if Luke concentrated he could pick up on the image of a beskar helmet turned to look at him. Luke smiled softly under his hood. 

After all this man had protected the child from, and in spite of the nearly indestructible armour—impervious even to a lightsaber, he remembered from Jedi texts dating back to the Jedi-Mandalorian wars—the child still worried about their father. Luke knew, of course, that the man would be fine. Whatever dark troopers remained between him and these two, he’d dispose of them just as quickly as the others from before.

However much he tried to comfort the child with this, though, some fear still remained. They were worried that their father would be hurt, wounded in some way. It would be proven in a minute, but, wanting to assuage the child’s fear, Luke sent across the first thing he could think of. He didn’t know if it would mean as much to the child as it had to himself, but to him, the symbol had signified the link between them and emphasised that it truly was his destiny to find the child. Loud and clear, he showed the child the image of the mudhorn symbol, hoping that they might on some intuitive level, due to their sensitivity in the Force, understand the meanings of that symbol. That Luke was bound to them by destiny, and would protect them and their loved ones against any danger.

The symbol obviously meant something to the child, as they immediately sent back a clear response which, should Luke try to transcribe it into Basic, might best be expressed as ‘!!!!!!!’. The child again showed him the beskar helmet, but this time the accompanying emotion was pure untempered excitement.

Luke refocused himself on the fight ahead as the elevator finally ticked up to his floor and eventually opened its doors. He let the Force guide his saber as he blocked the incoming shots from the dark troopers amassed outside the elevator, before expertly cutting them down. He used the Force to crush the last one before approaching the blast doors that separated him from the child.

The doors had already suffered from the dark troopers’ onslaught, and he could surely cut through them with his lightsaber, but he waited. He had a feeling that wouldn’t be necessary. And it might send a slightly less intimidating message to wait until he was let in. True enough, the doors opened after only a few seconds, and Luke walked in, paying no mind to the four weapons trained on him.

For a second, the green of his lightsaber reflected in the silver-coloured armour of the Mandalorian man. Then Luke deactivated it and attached it to his belt, before removing his hood and facing them all. The Mandalorian stood with his left shoulder toward Luke, as if half shielding something from him. What exactly that was soon became evident as a chair behind the Mandalorian swiveled just enough to allow the child to peek out and look at him.

Luke was just about to introduce himself when the Mandalorian turned to face him head on and Luke caught sight of his right shoulder. There, emblazoned on the beskar, was the exact symbol he’d seen so many times throughout his life. The very one that adorned both his lightsaber and his hand. His very well thought-out introduction died on his tongue and all reasonable thoughts were replaced with the amusingly surreal observation that maybe that education plan wouldn’t be quite as complicated as he’d originally thought.

“Are you a Jedi?” asked the Mandalorian. Who was his soulmate. His other half according to destiny and the Force.

“Uh,” said Luke, and immediately felt his face redden in embarrassment as at least two of the very intimidating women with guns lowered their weapons slightly, evidently having come to the conclusion that he wasn’t that much of a threat after all.

“Wait, hold on,” he said, and scrambled to tug off the glove on his right hand. “Yes, I’m a Jedi. May the Force be with you.”

The Mandalorian tilted his head slightly and Luke wondered how such a subtle action conveyed so much incredulity, disappointment, and general sense of confusion. Luke finally got his glove off, though, and hurriedly held out the palm of his hand to the Mandalorian.

“Look!” he said excitedly. The Mandalorian awkwardly took half a step closer to see his hand.

“Uh,” he said.

“Don’t you see? It’s the same as the symbol on your shoulder!”

“Yeah. What a weird coincidence,” said Luke’s other half. “So, about the kid…”

The strong-looking woman holding a blaster cannon had now completely lowered her weapon and looked incredulously at the Mandalorian.

“Wait, Mando! He has your clan signet on him? That sounds like a soulmate symbol, _doesn’t it_?” she asked pointedly.

Luke distantly felt grateful that the woman had spoken up, since he was currently processing that the soulmate he’d spent about ten years imagining had responded to their matched symbol with the words ‘what a weird coincidence.’ 

“Soulmate symbol?” asked the Mandalorian, turning toward the woman after failing to make eye contact with Luke who was staring absently into the middle distance.

“Mando, I swear to the stars, if your next words are—”

“What’s a soulmate symbol?” the Mandalorian interrupted the woman. She instantly adopted the same tired expression Luke was sure was on his own face as well. At her vacant look, Luke shook himself out of his own stupor, feeling that one of them should be functional at least.

“Okay listen. Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else. It’s gonna take a while.”

“Wait, I don’t understand,” said the Mandalorian. “I thought you were coming for the kid?”

Normally, Luke would at least try to be more pedagogical but he currently felt very tired and confused, and honestly, slightly grumpy. So the best he could muster up was: “Yeah. What about it?”

“Aren’t you going to take him?” the Mandalorian asked.

“Well, yes,” said Luke, and threw one more look at the beskar pauldron. “But I’m taking you too.”

“...Okay,” said the Mandalorian, sounding confused but relieved as he went to pick up the child.

Luke turned back to the elevator before stopping in his tracks, sighing deeply, and turning back.

“My X-wing won’t fit the three of us,” he said.

“That’s all right,” spoke up one of the other women. She had a slighter build than the first one, and carried what looked like a sniper rifle. “Boba is coming to pick us up. He can give Mando and the kid a ride to a nearby system and you can all figure out transportation from there.”

“Boba…” Luke closed his eyes. “As in Boba Fett?”

“Uh, yeah,” replied the woman, voice soft with surprise..

Luke made an indiscernible, high-pitched noise against his will, exhaling sharply. “Of course,” he said, not elaborating any further.

Then he turned and promptly began walking back to the elevator.

“I’ll be in my X-wing. You can just call me from the Slave 1 and we can arrange a destination, all right?” He didn’t bother turning around or waiting for a response before striding off quickly towards the elevator. On his way, he passed Artoo who had been heading to the bridge and now had to rapidly turn and hurry to keep up with him. The droid beeped questioningly.

“I’ll explain on the way,” he sighed, pressing the button on the elevator and descending to the docking bay.

He didn’t quite manage to come out of the shell shock until he reached the planet where he’d agreed to meet up with the Mandalorian and the child. The three of them ended up talking and getting to know each other through some combination of Basic, the Force and whatever nonverbal communication with which the Mandalorian seemed extremely well-versed at communicating with the child. 

By the time Din got to the part about how the black lightsaber, which was now his, meant that he was actually king of Mandalore, Luke had managed to calm himself to the point where the emotions he felt were mainly contained. On the positive side, Grogu seemed to find his father’s cluelessness and Luke’s distress very amusing, so at least someone was having a good time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so that was actually the final real chapter. Now all that's left is a tiny lil epilogue. I could have put it in here as well, but i liked the idea of giving it its own chapter, so that's what's up with that!


	4. Epilogue: Mandalore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, once again, in case you missed the end note of the last chapter, i just wanna say that this is just a lil epilogue and not a full length chapter, in case you were expecting that.

“All right, all right!” Luke raised his voice to be heard over the noise of children talking excitedly to each other. “That’s it for today, so let’s all put away our sabers, okay?”

The small class started putting away their wooden practice sabers, one of the older kids helping Grogu put his own stick away since he was too short to reach the rack. Luke couldn’t help but smile as he overheard the kids talk enthusiastically about the lesson with each other, turning to put away his own practice saber that he’d used for his demonstration. As he was reaching back, a familiar glint of sun on beskar caught his eye and he looked to see Din’s unmistakable form striding towards the practice area.

He waved to the man and then, on a whim, reached for his own practice saber, as well as an extra one which he threw to Din as soon as he was close enough. Din caught it effortlessly and tilted his head in a gesture that Luke had come to equate roughly with a raise of the eyebrows. He returned it with what he hoped was an imploring look. Din shook his head softly as he approached, although Luke recognised it to be a headshake of fondness rather than rejection.

As Din reached the center of the practice area, Luke gestured to the class of children with a smug smile. The kids had all finished putting away their equipment, but instead of scattering to go home, they’d all returned to their place in front of Luke and were now looking with big eyes between Luke and Din, clearly hoping for a demonstration. Luke gave out a laugh of victory when he heard Din sigh softly, knowing he had him.

“All right,” Din said to the kids. “But you’d all better back up a bit. It’s not safe to stand too close.”

The kids scrambled to take several steps back until they deemed themselves to be sufficiently far away. Din turned to Luke and raised his practice saber in a ready stance. Luke mirrored the stance and smiled at his opponent with something between mischievousness and fondness.

They kept it simple, both preferring to give just enough of a performance to impress the kids rather than turn it to a real sparring session. They took turns for a while, alternating between attacking each other and blocking the other’s attacks. Eventually, when Luke felt they’d kept up the fight long enough and had incorporated enough of the techniques the kids had been learning lately, he started to pick up the pace, signalling to Din that it was time to wrap it up. Neither of them increased the technical difficulty of the moves, but they did put more effort into the simple techniques they used, actually competing somewhat for who could end the fight first.

Finally, Din took a chance on an offensive attack that would let him disarm Luke if he was fast enough. Luke however, had the advantage of not being dressed head to toe in heavy beskar armour and managed to turn the attack around and take advantage of Din opening up his side. Luke quickly made a slashing motion at Din’s body before turning and disarming him as well. Din immediately collapsed and fell to his back in response to the fatal injury Luke had bestowed upon him.

The kids all erupted into cheers and applause at the end of the fight. Luke bowed, while Din, in his injured state, could only manage to turn and bow his head toward the class. As the kids began to disperse to head home, Luke reached out a hand to help Din up from the ground.

“You’ve defeated me, Jedi,” Din said quietly to him.

“So I have,” Luke smiled.

He leaned his head forward to meet Din’s in a Keldabe kiss. He closed his eyes and breathed in in contentment, relishing the solid beskar against his forehead and his hands. The peaceful moment was broken by his husband’s matter-of-fact voice:

“So the Darksaber is yours now. When will you be assuming your duties as Mand’alor?”

Luke laughed and broke away from Din. “Well, if I’m going to be Mand’alor I hope you’re prepared to take over as Jedi Grand Master.”

Din shook his head and caught sight of Grogu who was wandering over from where he’d been watching the fight with the other kids. The child cooed happily and reached his arms up to his father. Din acquiesced and picked him up.

“I’ll make a great Grand Master. Grogu will teach me some magic tricks and we’ll have them all fooled, won’t we, buddy?”

Grogu giggled in response. Luke chuckled before putting his arm around Din’s waist and leading them away from the practice area.

“We can discuss the terms of your surrender over dinner, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done!!
> 
> that's it, that's all there is!
> 
> i'm honestly kind of proud of myself for writing something so much longer than what i usually do (and the respect i already had for the people out there writing novel length fic has grown exponentially over the course of my working on this thing...)
> 
> but! yes! if you liked this, it would make me super happy if you'd leave a comment and tell me what your favourite part was! i think my favourite part to write might have actually been luke's dialogue with his friends in chapter one, it was really fun to try and figure out what their personalities were and what the group dynamic should be like :)
> 
> alsoalsoalso!! if you just came across this work on its own and haven't seen any of the other contributions to the star wars soulmate month, i urge you to check them out! you should be able to click yourself over to the collection from this work, and then you can read all the star wars soulmate fic your heart desires!


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